


Springshot

by Bubosi



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/M, Female pronouns for Runner Five, The 5am is subtle and spring-flavoured, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 17:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14001324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bubosi/pseuds/Bubosi
Summary: Runner Five basks in the sunshine of a new year, and in the company of some of Abel's best and brightest.- Written for a prompt by homeboundrunnerfive on Tumblr





	Springshot

**Author's Note:**

> I've asked for ZR prompts to write some things people want to see and get some practice in, HomeboundRunnerFive sent me this lovely one;
> 
> "So for the prompt thing if it's okay to ask away: maybe some Sam/Five or Sara/Five bonding? Not very specific but maybe about bonding over gardening, or killing zombies, or things they miss from before the apocalypse? I feel like that would be very sweet!"

The sky had bled into vibrant streaks of orange so striking that Runner Five had almost paused to take in the scene. A part of her, an echo of someone she once was, wanted to reach for the phone she no longer had and snap a photo. It was a good thing that Five didn’t actually stop. She had barely made in inside the walls when whomever was on duty dropped Abel’s heavy metal gate on a fast zombie that had been far too close for comfort.

Safe, finally, Five slowed from a run to a walk to a stumble. Behind them, the earth was stained with the dark blood of the undead whose reaching fingers still twitched. The gate had fallen exactly on its head and crushed it like an egg.

Five laughed, breathless but joyful. She had been out for hours and was pumped full of the adrenalin rush she only got from these kinds of runs. These runs, of course, being those she shared with Sara.

“See, Five, I told you we would make it back before sundown,” Sara said, unable to hide the way her grin bled into her words even as she, too, fought to catch her breath. “We were totally fine.”

“Don’t look now, but I think someone might disagree with you,” Five said, having spotted their radio operator emerging from the comms shack behind Sara looking as stern his face allowed.

“Five! Eight, you’re both alright?”

Sam looked more dishevelled that he usually did, which was a testament to how he had spent the last two hours running his hands through his hair and tugging on his clothes as his runners clambered through an abandoned megastore. One he had explicitly told them was too dangerous to chance. Especially so close to the end of the day.

It looked like, for a moment as Sam’s arms fluttered at his side unsurely, that he was going to hug Five. Any such reunion was postponed on closer inspection of the runner. She was covered in blood and grime, so much it was hard to tell where runner ended and zombie viscera began. Instead, Sam crossed his arms across his chest to tamp down on his fidgeting.

“We’re fine, Sam,” Sara waived a dismissive hand. “We always are.”

Sam made a pained noise somewhere in his throat and Five felt her heart twinge. While she trusted Sara, and her own ability to outrun or gun most of anything outside of Abel, she hated seeing Sam upset and now it was pretty clear he was. It was at least in part her fault.

“Sorry, Sam.” Five said, cutting off whatever he was going to say to Sara. “For making you worry. But we are good at what we do. And it was worth it.”

It looked like Sam was going to retort, but then his shoulders relaxed and the corners of his mouth tugged up reluctantly. He’d taken her reassurance, Five saw, and she wondered how much of that was because he actually trusted her and how much was because she honestly felt like she could take on the world in that moment. There was a faint tremor in all Five’s limbs but, if asked, in that moment she could have run the day again. It was hard to sound unconvincing when you were ready to fight a mountain.

“Well you’re right, obviously, but,” he shrugged helplessly. “Please. That was too close.”

None of them looked at the smear by the gates but they were all thinking about it. It had only been a couple of meters behind Five as she came in. The snipers usually took out anything that got within spitting distance.

“We’ll be careful, Sam. But for now I think Five and I are going to hit the showers and get checked out. If we stand around much longer like this we’ll start attracting flies.”

Sara was still smiling, but she was right. It had been easy to ignore the mud between toes and the brain matter in hair when blood and stakes were high, but back within Abel’s walls Five’s skin began to itch. The urge to be clean again overwhelmed her. The showers were so close.

Reassuring Sam some more could wait. Everything could wait, actually, until Five had scrubbed herself raw and new.

With a nod to Sara, Five shrugged off her pack and offered it to Sam with a cheeky smile. Technically, the Runners were supposed to deliver their own packs and help who ever was on duty sort through what they’d brought back. Alert them to any special purpose something had, warn them of any possible sharp objects. That kind of thing. At this point, hours after she had been scheduled back, Five just wasn’t feeling it.

It seemed like Sam wouldn’t take it, he did his his best to keep his arms crossed and look disappointed with her, but the operator had always been weak to Five’s smiles. Even when she was covered in filth. Five grinned a little more genuinely and Sam’s face may or may not have flushed. It was hard to tell in the amber half-light of sunset. With a put-upon sigh, he took her pack from her, eyes wide as he felt how heavy it was.

“What did you guys find, an untapped supply of lead? I hate to break it to you, but this is a zombie apocalypse, not a _nuclear_ apocalypse.”

“Mainly cans, Sam.” Sara said, removing her knife from her own pack. “And electrical supplies. You might want to track down Janine, she’ll be happy with us. Or our haul, at least. Not sure how she’ll feel about the breaking protocol part.”

The smirk told Five and Sam that Sara knew exactly what Janine would think, but so long as it was her on the run and not one of the other runners they were safe from a dressing down. Whether it was for their friendship or the strange, unconditional trust they shared, Janine seemed to take everything Sara did at face value.

Sam grunted as Sara’s pack hit him in the chest and he scrabbled to keep it from dropping to the floor with all their precious spoils.

“Hey!”

“We’ll see you at dinner, Sam.” Sara waved over her shoulder, already turned about and on her way to the quarantine shower block. Five waved too, trying to memorise the image of Sam struggling to hold up the two backpacks and pouting after Sara’s retreating form, before jogging away.

-

The water hit Five’s bare back and the feeling of ants crawling on her skin vanished with the first layer of grime.

Somewhere to her right, closer to the door, Sara sighed with a relief similar to what Five felt. It wasn’t normal that they came back looking like they’re fought their way through a small army, but then it wasn’t every day that they did fight their way through a small army. They’d had to cut through so many undead that the blood had soaked into the wooden handle of Five’s axe so deeply it was certainly stained. She didn’t know if it was safe to use anymore. That would be something she would have to ask Maxine about when she had the chance. Residual infection risk and the like. But, later.

The thought of her axe swam in her mind then was washed away by the warm spray, like everything else. Runner Five retraced the shape of the day in her mind as she scrubbed her arms clean, letting it pass her by.

The day had started well, they’d had a good run. Then another- and then the megastore. Five wasn’t sure that could be called a good place, only the outcome was good. They were both alive. Unbitten. They hadn’t been checked over yet but neither of them were the type to hide something like that. And they had enough fuses and wiring to keep the electrics ticking over for a month at least.

Perhaps Five could categorise this one as a good run. A good day? Maybe. One worth remembering.

“Five?” Sara called, her voice muted by the rushing water but still cutting into whatever circle Five’s thoughts were falling into.

“Mm?”

“You okay there?”

“Mhmm.”

“Good,” Sara said, and Five could hear the amusement in her voice. “Because if we’re going to get to the mess before they throw the leftovers to the goats we’re going to need to get a move on.”

Five blinked and came back to herself properly. She had drifted away somewhere in the comfort of the warm water, long enough that Sara was already towelling off and getting dressed in fresh clothes someone had brought them while Five had been spaced out.

By the time Five was dried and dressed she was contemplating just skipping dinner and letting the goats take her portion. The rush that came from killing and not-quite dying had faded and left in its place a weakness that shook through all of Five’s muscles.

“On second thought, I might just go to bed. Food is overrated.”

“Oh no you don’t, Five. You are not leaving me to suffer Sam’s fretting by myself.” Sara threw a heavy arm over Five’s shoulder in a gesture that Five interpreted as the threat it was. You walk, or you get dragged.

“Ugh.”

There was no fighting it, not unless she wanted to make a dash across the Township, the thought of which made her legs pre-emptively wobble in protest. Instead, Five resigned herself to another hour or so awake. She supposed it wasn’t the end of the world. Sam would definitely still be there, even though they had taken a while getting washed up. He was like that.

It was a testament to how late they’d made it back that the mess, a kitchen with a glorified awning really, was mostly empty. Usually come dinner time it would be heaving, the kitchen churning out as much as it could and a line would form around the interior walls. People would be squished along every bench and those with younger bones or less scruples would find a patch of floor to sit on.

As Five and Sara entered through the door, a barely-there thing pilfered from an old shed, they immediately clocked about twenty people including some very familiar faces.

“Hey! Over here,” Jodie called, standing up to wave them over. “I’d say we saved you seats but they kind of emptied themselves.” She was smiling, but it looked a little too wide to be quite natural at them just joining her for dinner. It took a second for Five to clock that Owen was the other end of the bench Jodie was on and obviously edging closer, barely acknowledging their appearance.

The people on kitchen duty fretted at making more work for the clean-up crew when they had already begun to pack away the day’s remains, but one thing Five had learnt is that ‘no’ wasn’t something that happened to Runner 8. She wasn’t sure whether it was the implications about food supplies she made or Sara’s generally intimidating aura, but whatever the method the result was Five and Sara walking back to their table with generous portions of some approximation of shepherd’s pie.

Sometimes, Five remembered that Sara had been a mother and wondered what that was like, that family. Two teenagers with characteristic stubbornness clashing with the Sara Smith. Immovable objects meeting an unstoppable force.

Evan, who had apparently finished eating a while ago and was just sticking around for the company, waved to Five, gesturing to the empty space beside him at the table. Before Five had to make the decision between blowing off Evan and leaving Jodie to the uncomfortably tender mercies of Owen the decision was taken from her as Sara slid onto the bench beside their Head of Runners without a word. Evan started, turning in his seat to look at Sara who ignored him, digging into her food.

“Hi,” Five greeted as she came up behind Jodie and fought to control her laugh at the pure relief that her friend broadcasted to her through her eyes.

The bench was hard with no give to it, but Five collapsed onto it anyway. She closed her eyes and took a moment to savour the feeling of not being on her feet.

“Tough run?”

“Oh, not so bad.” Sara said around a mouthful.

Opening one eye, Five’s hand shot out and she stole one of Sara’s carrots from her plate and munched on it, staring into her eyes as she did.

“Easy for you to say,” Sam said, dropping down into the seat across from Five, apparently back from returning his crockery. “You’re not afraid of anything. I’m pretty adverse of seeing my runners get eaten alive for a few cans of beans. But you know, that’s just me.”

“And fuses,” Five chipped in between bites of her dinner. “Those too.”

“I’d rather have you in one piece that a handful of fuses!”

The way Five’s heart took that wasn’t how it had probably been meant, but her face warmed anyway and she had to duck her head and focus very hard on the pile of mashed potato and veg on her plate. Was it really shepherd’s pie if it had no mince?

 “What went wrong? You guys were out for ages.” Jodie asked, saving Five from having to say something else, or not say anything else and make it awkward.

“Five and Eight decided to raid the megastore out by the leisure park. Because, apparently, a small army of the undead is a minor inconvenience when there’s cans of spaghetti hoops on the line.”

Owen’s head snapped around to fix Five then Sara with an openly awed stare. “You got some spaghetti hoops? What do you think’ll happen to them?”

“The same thing that happens to all the food,” Jodie sighed, pointedly not looking at Owen. “They go to the kitchen. Like they always do. It’s not exactly a mysterious process.”

It looked like the two were going to fall into a spell of bickering over Five’s head as she tried to eat, and Jodie had an edge to her voice that was tired enough to really snap back. Sara was briefly distracted by this, watching in wait for the explosion from one or the other of them. Five stole another a piece of broccoli from her plate. Her distant smile flatlined.

“Whose grand idea was that?” Evan cut in, face severe. “That place is a marked red-zone. Out of bounds for runners without express permission, let alone two of our best we can’t afford to lose.”

“Ah, but surely if we’re two of the best we should be fine, Seven.” Sara laughed, but it was a dangerous laugh. Five had never been able to pin down those two. They seemed like they should get on, but evidently someone knew something she didn’t. “And look at us both, not a scratch on us. Or no important ones, anyway.” Sara examined her right arm, a little scraped from manoeuvring a fire axe into zombie skulls within the tight confines of a service corridor. Evan moved further along the bench, away from the danger-zone of Sara’s sharp elbows as she twisted to examine the raw skin more closely.

“One success does not a precedent make. Honestly, you’ve gotten worse recently. All this risk-taking.”

“He’s right, actually,” Sam said, eyes cast upwards as he thought about it. “You’ve been taking bigger risks, ever since, oh.” Sam blinked.

“Since?” Jodie said, having briefly forgotten her wish to push Owen off the bench.

“Since you started going on runs with Five, Sara.”

There was a moment where everyone considered this and found no rebuttal. Instead of denying it, Sara just shrugged.

“So it’s better to risk two lives than one?” Evan sniped, evidently not over whatever animosity that lay there.

Sara snorted into her water. “More like it’s better to have someone watching your back. Five and I work well together, we can do more as a pair than I can alone. Some of us are willing to put the good of the township before ourselves. And,” Sara added, as if to ease the sharpness of what she’d said, “it’s fun.”

“Huh.” Runner Five put down their fork and then it struck them. “Oh. I’m an enabler.”

The table dissolved into laughter and conversation that washed away the residue fatigue and tension of the day, and Five took the opportunity to steal Sara’s last carrot. Just because she could.

-

It was rare that Runner Five got a lie-in. It was rarer still that they actually got to enjoy one when the opportunity rolled around.

Sleeping in the runners’ block had its perks, not least of which was that many of Five’s precious people lived in the same building. It also had its downsides. One of which was the noise. Come six or seven in the morning people started dragging themselves out to chase the dawn. It was good etiquette to keep noise to a minimum if you had to head out early but there was something about the sound of people moving around in the same building that refused to let Five sleep. Instinct, probably, from her time before Abel. Safe walls meant nothing to her when her eyes were shut.

By seven thirty or so the morning after the slight misadventure of her last run, Five was tired of lying in her room and watching the patterns her eyes made on the ceiling. She fully intended to enjoy her rest day, but the last months had left her ill suited to staying still for long periods without purpose. It didn’t help that everywhere around her there were sounds of movement, of readiness.

It took only a little exercise of willpower to leave the warmth of her bed and get dressed for the day ahead. Runner Five already knew where she was headed that day so she pulled on one of her lesser-loved tops and some thick, worn jeans that were a little too big around the knees where the cotton was frayed almost to splitting.

Outside the door, boots tied tight, Five took a moment to breathe in the new day. Even though the sun had only recently risen, she could feel what it was going to be like in the first rays that warmed her face. The air was cold still with leftover winter, but spring had sunk in its roots. The sun was bright, glinting off the armoury’s razor wire as for the first time in a week it wasn’t raining. Pulling on the hoodie she had pinched from Sam last Bonfire Night (and he hadn’t asked for her to return yet), Five strode away from the runner’s rooms and towards the farm.

While Janine always insisted there was no shortage of work to do, there was no obligation for the runners to work on their rest days. Not, after all, when they were such a precious resource. However, Five felt spending time on the farm wasn’t work in the true sense of the word. It was physical, sure, and the list of to-dos always outstripped the list of done-thats. It was dirty and demanding and sometimes frustrating. There was joy in it, though. In turning over the soil and seeing your hard work flower.

There was victory and bitter triumph in cutting down a zombie (or sometimes something less dead but just as rotten) but little joy. Vindication, but none of the light feeling Five got in her chest as she ran her fingers over the smooth-worn handle of a pitchfork stuck in the soil.

The gardens were quiet, mostly, that day. Not far off there were people wrangling the goats for milking and chatter from the greenhouses, but there was no one out in the beds where Five came to a stop.

Little had changed since she had last been there. In winter not much grew, and that which did had been planted months before. The majority of work for the farmers focused on the upkeep of the animals, the crops they could grow in the hothouses, and protecting their stocks. It especially wouldn’t do to have another attack of potato rot.

Where Five had stopped to look over the farm was especially barren. The outdoor beds were all empty, except where they were littered with the slowly decaying greenery of the last harvest and a singular bed of leeks. It was her favourite place in Abel, when it wasn’t so dead.

From a little way’s away someone called and Runner Five’s head snapped up, eyes searching. It was one of the farmers, waving to her from the entrance to one of the greenhouses. It was someone Five had worked and talked with before, Oliver, if she remembered correctly. He had worked in a bank once, Five knew. Something lowly he didn’t miss as much as he missed the allotment he’d kept with his father, so when he’d come to Abel he’d been put to work growing the Township’s veg supply. It should have been strange to see someone taken to the end of the world so well. It was, surprisingly, not so unusual. Five knew better than most there were still things you could find when you had lost everything else.

“Heya! Hey there, Runner Five, you here to help us today?” Five nodded, gesturing to her soil-stained jeans. “Of course, excellent! Thanks for coming along, now, we’ve got a lot to do so you’ve got some options, if you want me to go through them?”

She does, but she already knows what she will end up doing. There’s something about working out in the garden. This far from Abel’s boundaries with the tents and housing blocks on one side and the animal enclosures on the other everything is muffled, only the occasional groan floats by on the wind. It’s quiet, yet still outdoors. Almost like before. When Five puts her head down to work she can’t even see the walls.

-

It was maybe three or four hours later, the sun high in earnest, when Sam came to find Five where she was perched on the edge of one of the raised beds.

Behind her the soil was churned up and ready for composting and planting before the next bout of rain came to undo all her work. Several other beds stood similarly overturned, with the withered remains of the last crop piled upon the paving slabs.

His footsteps alerted Five to his approach and she looked away from the little bird she had been watching to wave. It was always good to see him, but it was a different sort of good to see him when they were off duty. When they weren’t operator and runner but friends. It reassured her to know that she wasn’t just work to him. The thought fed the warm feeling nestled under her ribcage, and the warmth in her cheeks.

“Five, hey there!” Sam half jogs over to her. “Fancy seeing you here, Five, I was just out for a walk. Stretching my legs. Getting some air. Air I haven’t already breathed five times today, you know?” Five laughed, she did know, and she also knew that Sam’s walks always happened to pass the gardens, and pass them again if he didn’t see her there the first time. She brushed some soil of the plank next to her and gestured for him to sit.

“Ah, thanks, Five. I can’t believe you’re out here on your day off, I mean, it’s a nice day, I guess. But if I’d had a day like you had yesterday I’d want a week off. A day in bed at least.” He said as he sat down next to Five and stretched out his legs across the path. His jeans were a little less worn than hers. Fewer holes.

“This is restful,” Five said, and Sam snorted, pointedly looking around at the tilled soil. “And it’s not like Sara’s resting.”

Sam frowned. “You know, you’re right. She’s running decoy this morning, actually. I’m not sure how she gets away with being out as much as she is. I used to wonder if she was blackmailing Janine or something but, well. I’m pretty sure Janine doesn’t feel fear.”

“Would you want to try to keep Sara still?”

“Good point, yeah, no.” Sam laughed softly and they lapsed into a peaceful quiet. It was easy to be quiet around Sam, if only because he generally talked for the both of them.

Even surrounded by their friends, Five’s words wouldn’t come quite right, and the worse they came out the less she wanted to speak. Here, with Sam, it was a little better.

“So,” Sam drawled, unable to keep a silence for very long. “Gardening?”

“Yes.” Five turned a little where she sat so Sam could see her raised eyebrow. “We are, you see, in the garden.”

Sam sputtered. “Well, yes. It’s just that I meant to ask why.” Sam paused, then realised he hadn’t really elaborated at all. “I was just curious. You’re a runner, so you don’t have to do anything on your off days. And if you _want_ to there are choices. Like helping Maxine, or gun maintenance. I thought something like that might be more your thing, considering you came from Mullins. On my days off I at least like to savour being clean.” He gestured to her, with her muddied jeans and the dirt caked thick under her nails.

Sometimes Runner Five wondered if Sam would recognise her if she wasn’t covered in sweat and dirt. With tidier hair and civilian clothes that weren’t mismatched and full of holes. The her from before the end and before Mullins.

“I miss it,” Five said, rubbing at a smear on her arm and making it worse. “I’ve always loved gardening, and now it’s good to do something that’s not killing. Or running from being killed.”

There was a moment of quiet and Five glanced to her left to see Sam staring at her, eyes a little wide, and she realised she’d made the moment serious. Was this a moment? If they were having a moment, she was afraid she was ruining it.

“Or, whatever. It’s just nice. Nice to see something grow. It’s rewarding.”

“Huh.” Sam huffed, and his face coloured at something she had said. He turned to look over the empty and dead beds that currently dominated the area they sat in. “I can’t relate, I don’t think I’ve ever kept anything alive longer than a week.”

“You’ve kept me alive.”

“That’s different.”

“I’m sure you’re not that bad.”

“Five,” Sam reached over to grip Five by her shoulders and stare intently into her eyes. “Once my roommate asked me to look after their bonsai tree and it started losing its leaves before they’d even left the dorm. It was older than I was and I killed it without even doing anything.” Five snickered into her hand, but Sam wasn’t done. He leaned in closer and whispered, eyes haunted. “Five. I once killed a cactus.”

“No!”

“Yes. I can’t be trusted with plants, Five. I’m a killer.”

At this Five couldn’t help but laugh properly, and Sam let her go as she toppled back to lean onto her hands. In between her fingers the soil was cold and gritty and good. The light feeling she’d been floating on all day surged in her chest and if her boots weren’t so heavy she might have floated away right then.

“So now you know. My dark secret.”

“I think you’re being a quitter. I think we should find you a little green friend for the comms shack.”

“Five, no, that is an objectively terrible idea.”

“Hmm, I think it’s good. We could get you, hm. Let me think.”

“Five, no.”

“What do you think about some herbs? Or a little tomato plant? The kitchen would be happy to have some basil.”

“I think you’re not listening to me, Five.”

“Or, oh, what if I find you a little tree on my next run? You can look after it, to make up for your sins.”

Sam sighed. “Honestly, I think whatever ship carried my green finger has sailed. I’ll stick to the things I’m good at.”

“You’re good at a lot of things,” Five shrugged, eyes tracing the fuzzy corners of clouds. “Important things.”

Sam didn’t reply immediately, but Five could feel his gaze on the side of her face as he thought about what she’d said. It had been meant casually, but Five remembered the things Sam had said that night she had been stranded, thought dead. Things about how much of a failure he had been. How he might miss his parents, but at least if they were dead they’d never know how much of a disappointment he was.

Not for the first time, Five wondered what the runners meant to Sam. What she meant to him, as a runner, as a friend, as his latest Five.

The weight of Sam’s head dropped against Five’s shoulder and she started out of her thoughts. Sam was no longer watching her but had also turned his eyes to the sky and the little clouds drifting past. Five had never seen Sam wearing glasses so she supposed he saw a different version of the sky than she did, but the blue was couldn’t have been any less bright, or the sun any less sweet.

It was a short while later that Janine rounded the corner of one of the greenhouses and Sam jumped up, remembering suddenly he was taking a walk and should really get back to doing that. Immediately.

-

It was only the next day when Sam trudged into the comms shack shortly after the sun was up, harried on by an urgent mission, that he found the thing Five had left for him. With eyes still bleary from sleep he had almost missed it.

On the far corner of his desk, atop a stack of dissected PC towers and beneath the shack’s singular window, was a terracotta pot. Only a little chipped around the edges, from it sprung a bright huddle of daffodils. They were the brightest thing in the room, so much so Sam had to pause to blink at them. Yellow, vibrant, like yesterday’s sunshine, and orange the same as the jumper he still hadn’t asked Runner Five to return.

They sat there for the whole of that spring, and Sam even remembered to water them.


End file.
